Sugar daily goal

arowswell

Hi, wonder if anybody can help me, I have a daily calorie of 1960.

Protein - 105g
Carbs - 262g
Fibre - 38g
Sugar - 79g
Fat - 70g
Saturated Fat - 24
Cholesterol - 300mg
Vitamin A - 100mg
Vitamin C - 100mg

I’m completely new to MFP so please tell me if I’m being stupid but I have a few questions.

Firstly, on NHS website it says my sugar intake should be 30grams? I want to loose 2lb a week and MFP has put me on 79g of sugar? I have read previously on here that that’s total sugar and that’s ok? Can somebody explain this please.

Also, I have a berocca in morning and my vitamin goes over straight away. Do I need to change any of my macros or is MFP usually good at judging the macros? I put what I wanted to achieve and how many pounds a week and it calculated it for me.

Please help,

Thanks in advance.

cmriverside

This site doesn't differentiate between natural sugars (from lactose and fructose) and the added sugars that you are seeing on the NHS and WHO guidelines.

So, yeah, keep your ADDED sugars below 30g.

cmriverside

Also, second part of your question: the database on this site is crowd-sourced, so many of the vitamins are missing. You can vet your choices against the NHS nutrition database or the USDA database in the U.S.

If micronutrient tracking is important to you, you'll need to vet every entry you use from the database. Once you use it, then it's in your list (Recents, Favorites, etc.) Or you can enter new items or edit existing ones and then they are in your MY FOODS.

arowswell

Thanks. So do I need to change my sugar grams ? Or is that about right?

cmriverside

arowswell wrote: »

Thanks. So do I need to change my sugar grams ? Or is that about right?

Unless you have the Premium version, I don't think you can change Sugars, they are default levels, I believe. I don't even track sugars, they are covered in Carbs.

Sugar is available by default on the View Print Version, so I just track something else on the FOOD page.

cmriverside

I don't even know if Sugar is editable on the paid version.

arowswell

I do have the premium version and I can change it but if it’s covered in carbs then I’ll leave it. I’m new to all of this so I don’t really know much

cmriverside

Cool. Up to you, then.

mmapags

I don't measure sugar at all. I swapped it out for fiber. Unless it's crowding out some other important things, it just doesn't matter. If you tend to intake a lot of added sugar, MFP isn't great for tracking that. In any event, unless you have a health problem that requires knowing, it's nothing to be concerned over.

quiksylver296

mmapags wrote: »

I don't measure sugar at all. I swapped it out for fiber. Unless it's crowding out some other important things, it just doesn't matter. If you tend to intake a lot of added sugar, MFP isn't great for tracking that. In any event, unless you have a health problem that requires knowing, it's nothing to be concerned over.

Same.

AnnPT77

Nutrition is important, but I do want to point out that for weight loss, nutrition doesn't much matter, especially in the short run**.

Weight management is all about the relationship between calories eaten and burned: Burn more than you eat, whether you burn them through daily life stuff or exercise, and no matter what you eat (as long as it isn't poison or medically counterindicated for you personally), and you'll lose weight.

Nutrition is very important for health, energy level, and potentially to feel full and satisfied. Since most of us want to be healthy, not just thin, it's helpful to get good well-rounded nutrition. Good nutrition - despite what a lot of the internet seems to want us to believe - is more about what is in our eating, not about what to exclude from it. Get enough protein, get enough healthy fats, eat a bunch of varied, colorful veggies and fruits (at least 5+ servings, and more is better), and you'll do pretty well - better than the average person.

The MFP settings are a good guide, but you don't need to be exact (even on the nutrients it's pretty good at tracking, like the major macronutrients). A little over one day, a little under the next: Fine. If persistently under on protein or fat or fiber, think about gradually nudging your eating pattern in a more positive direction. If hitting your minimums on those things, I personally wouldn't much worry about sugar - it's hard to be overeating added sugar while getting other needful nutrition, and focusing on that other needed nutrition is usually a higher-payoff use of time and energy.

** In the longer run, nutrition can affect energy level. Poor nutrition can cause fatigue, which means we rest more, do less . . . so burn fewer calories. That can indirectly affect weight loss. It can also affect how full we feel. Many calorie-dense but nutrient-poor foods are not very filling. That means we feel hungry, and it becomes easy to give in and overeat. Obviously, if overeating happens, that will have an effect on weight loss. But these are indirect effects of nutrition on weight management. At the core, in a direct sense, weight management is primarly about calories.

Best wishes!

lemurcat2

You also shouldn't think of everything as both a goal or a limit.

Calories are a goal and a limit.

Protein is a goal.

Carbs/Fat -- doesn't really matter if you are in cals (unless you have a tendency to eat super low fat, or unless you don't tend to eat important fats like omega-3s -- I do emphasize getting fatty fish, nuts and seeds, avocado, and to a lesser degree olives and olive oil into my diet).

Fiber is a goal but not a limit.

Sugar is a limit, not a goal. (But if your sugar is mostly intrinsic from foods such as fruit and you have sufficient protein, healthy fats, and fiber, and also eat a good selection of veg, and are not over cals, it doesn't actually matter. The MFP sugar goal assumes you don't eat all that much fruit and veg.)

Most vitamins are a goal, not a limit, and also are hard to track on MFP, so hardly worth focusing on.

Sat fat is a limit, not a goal.

So on.

For weight loss, cals matter. For nutrition, eating a nutrient dense diet matters, but macros aren't the best way to track that, food choice is. MFP doesn't track veg servings, for example, but that's important. It also doesn't do a good job tracking potassium (which is largely related to eating a traditionally healthy diet), but that also is important.